BP, the largest foreign investor in Azerbaijan's oil and gas sector, revealed its 2016 year-end results.

BP Azerbaijan, which is the operator of the block of Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli offshore oil and gas fields, as well as Shah Deniz gas and condensate field, reported that ACG continued to safely and reliably deliver stable production in 2016.

Total ACG production for the full year was on average 630,000 barrels per day (bpd) (over 230 million barrels or over 31.1 million tons in total) from the Chirag (54,000 bpd), Central Azeri (144,000 bpd), West Azeri (114,000 bpd), East Azeri (72,000 bpd), Deepwater Gunashli (126,000 bpd) and West Chirag (120,000 bpd) platforms.

In late 2016, 100 oil wells were producing, while 49 wells were used for gas or water injection. Out of these wells, five were among BP’s top 10 producing wells around the world as of the end of 2016. ACG completed 15 oil producer wells, 7 water injection wells and 1 gas injector well during 2016.

The field delivered an average of 7.5 million cubic metres per day of ACG associated gas to SOCAR (2.75 bcm in total), primarily at the Sangachal Terminal but also to SOCAR’s Oil Rocks facility. The remainder of the associated gas produced was re-injected for reservoir pressure maintenance.

In 2016, the Shah Deniz field continued to provide reliable deliveries of gas to markets in Azerbaijan (to SOCAR), Georgia (to GOGC), Turkey (to BOTAS) and to BTC Company in multiple locations. Last year, the field produced about 10.7 billion standard cubic metres (bcm) of gas and 2.5 million tonnes (about 20 million barrels) of condensate.

The existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is currently 30.0 million standard cubic metres of gas per day or around 10.9bcma. Shah Deniz spent approximately $469 million in operating expenditure and about $3.7 billion in capital expenditure, the majority of which was associated with the Shah Deniz Stage 2 project.

Implementation of the Shah Deniz Stage 2 project continued successfully in 2016. The project is now over 89 percent complete in terms of engineering, procurement and construction, and remains on target for first gas from Shah Deniz Stage 2 in 2018.

In September, a significant milestone was achieved in the project with the sail away of the jacket for one of the Shah Deniz Stage 2 platforms from the BDJF yard for offshore installation.

At the ATA yard, construction of both Shah Deniz 2 platform topsides is nearly complete and commissioning is well underway. The plan is to sail away these decks for offshore installation in the second and third quarters of 2017.

The Sangachal Terminal

In 2016, oil and gas from ACG and Shah Deniz continued to flow via subsea pipelines to the Sangachal Terminal. The Sangachal terminal exported more than 286.8 million barrels of oil, includeding over 253.4 million barrels through Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC), over 30.3 million barrels through the Western Route Export Pipeline (WREP), and more than 3.1 million barrels via a separate condensate export line.

On average, 28.9 million standard cubic metres (about 1.021 billion standard cubic feet) of Shah Deniz gas was exported from the Terminal daily during the year.

The daily capacity of the Terminal’s processing systems is currently 1.2 million barrels of crude oil and about 29.5 million standard cubic metres of Shah Deniz gas, while overall processing and export capacity for gas, including ACG associated gas is about 49.3 million standard cubic metres per day.

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC)

In 2016, BTC exported around 251 million barrels (about 33.5 million tonnes) of crude oil loaded on 313 tankers at Ceyhan. Since June 2006 till the end of 2016 it carried a total of about 2.61 billion barrels (around 349 million tonnes) of crude oil loaded on 3,425 tankers and sent to world markets.

In 2016, BTC spent approximately $118 million in operating expenditure and $58 million in capital expenditure.

The BTC pipeline currently carries mainly ACG crude oil and Shah Deniz condensate from Azerbaijan. In addition, other crude oil and condensate continue to be transported via BTC, including volumes from Turkmenistan andKazakhstan.

The South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP)

SCP’s daily average throughput was 19.9 million cubic metres of gas per day during 2016. In 2016, SCP spent about $27 million in operating expenditure and around $974 million in capital expenditure. The pipeline has been operational since late 2006, transporting Shah Deniz gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.